Saturday, March 7, 2009

I wanna ride the Midnight Meat Train..

No, I really fucking don't! Saw "Midnight Meat Train" (best title ever) last night and I am totally in love! Based on a short story by Clive Barker and directed by RyuheiKitamura, the crazy bastard that directed "Versus," "MMT" is a scary, gory, inventive piece of film making that is neither a remake nor a sequel. Imagine that! An original horror film!

I would have loved to see this in the theatres but Lionsgate, the studio behind the film, dumped it on DVD. Guess they figured it was a hard sell because it was actually scary and creepy instead of mindless and boring.

Vinnie Jones is great at the "Butcher" (I think they call him Mahogany for some reason) who rides the late night subways looking for victims. Bradley Cooper is the photographer that stumbles on to this story and becomes obsessed.

Now this film is not perfect by any means. The "inventive" camera work is a little distracting, the Cooper character is so dumb you are yelling at him the entire film, and the gore is a little excessive for my taste. Still, I loved it. First, it is a very "Lovecraftian" tale (can't give away the ending, but lets just say Jones is no ordinary killer.) Second, it falls into the category of "terrifying." There are no "Boo" scares. You always know what is coming, but it is that anticipation, the "Terror" of it all that leaves an impression. Finally, I cared about the characters. The same can't be said for the fools in "My Bloody Valentine." Why oh why does shit like "Saw" get released every year and I have to see this on the small screen?